Hot Topics:

From the Editor: Green Day and other seminal bands

By Lucas Peerman / Pulse Editor

Posted:
02/28/2013 04:55:30 AM MST

Green Day is going to play a March 13 show at Tricky Falls. The club — quickly making a name for itself as THE music venue in El Paso — can hold around 1,500 concert-goers, or about one-tenth the audience that will be clamoring to get tickets. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see one of the 10 most important musical acts touring today in an intimate venue.

Green Day made its mark on music by taking punk rock into the pop arena. Without them, Warped Tour is considerably less warped. Here's my list — feel free to disagree — of the other nine most important acts of that last 20 years still touring today.

• Arcade Fire — Music comes so naturally to this modern day Big Band, their sound will be emulated for decades to come.

• The Chemical Brothers — The first electronic act to rock arenas, they paved the way for Skrillex and others to do the same. However, there's still none better than this British duo.

• Eminem — The greatest lyricist since Billy Shakespeare once rhymed orange during a "60 Minutes" segment. Look it up.

• Jay-Z — There's no doubt this MC will be considered the godfather of rap when all is said and done.

• Norah Jones — She's a power player, no doubt; known for empowering the jazz genre, singer-songwriters and women the world over.

• Radiohead — The band's experiments both musically (distortion) and in the market (releasing a pay-what-you-want album) make them a trendsetter.

Advertisement

• Red Hot Chili Peppers — these rockers blend so many genres the only category that defines them is Hall of Famers.

• Taylor Swift — Similar to RHCP, she defies categorization. Millions of girls, in the country and inner city, want to be her when they grow up.

• Justin Timberlake — From boy band to boy genius, this modern day renaissance man can do no wrong.